Excavating teeth for an excavating bucket are well known and have been used for years. Such teeth are coupled by an adapter to the front lip of an excavating bucket. The teeth wear and often become loosened on the adapters. In such a case, the teeth must be replaced to avoid damage to the adapter and to the bucket.
A conventional adapter has a pair of spaced legs defining a space for receiving one portion of the lip of the excavating bucket to which the teeth are to be coupled by the adapter. A wedge extending through openings in the legs of the adapter press inclined surfaces of a C-clamp against the outer cam surfaces on the legs of the adapter to cause the legs to effectively grip the lip adjacent to the adapter. A typical disclosure of this structure is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,413,432.
Due to vibration, wear or other conditions, the wedge can become loosened and fall out. When the wedge falls out, the C-clamp separates from the adapter. Thus, the adapter may be damaged and the lip may need to be replaced also if it is damaged.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,413,432 discloses a C-clamp and a wedge for use in coupling an adaptor to the lip of an excavating bucket. A second wedge is placed between the first mentioned wedge and the C-clamp and is coupled to the C-clamp by a pin. The abutting faces of the two wedges have locking teeth which fit into recesses to effectively lock the wedges together. Upon loosening of the wedges due to wear, they must be replaced. This requires that the pin of the wedge between the C-clamp and the main wedge be removed from the C-clamp and the wedge be forced out of the system.
A main drawback of this notch structure of this patent resides in the fact that the wedges are difficult to install. It is also difficult to disassemble the wedges for replacement purposes.
Because of these problems, improvements are required to insure that the wedge becomes more positively interconnected with the C-clamp to avoid loosening of the adapter on the bucket lip. The present invention provides a resolution to the problem by providing an improved locking means on the wedge and the C-clamp.